10 Woolf.ppt

People don’t say what they feel. What people said “superficial” and “fragmentary” (p89) Lucrezia does not confess her unhappiness to anyone; Peter almost asks Clarissa what she really feels, but interrupted by Elizabeth; Clarissa does not voice the real feelings running through her head; Septimus says what he feels and is considered insane. Clarissa when young feels that “it was the only thing worth saying –what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt.” (p139) But unable to do so with Peter, Kilman, Elizabeth, Richard, and the guests at the party. Clarissa’s parties: she reminds everyone she sees to the party, “Remember my party.” except maybe Ellie Henderson, poor cousin, actually the one who really needs and enjoys the party. It seems silly, frivolous. Sensitive to beauty of the moments and details of human experience. parties way of sharing moments of pleasure with others. “offering” with something to help people remember her by after her death. Woolf once described insanity as a form of death because its intense loneliness created a human void for the sufferer. In parties, Clarissa fights this emptiness. Brings people together, create human dialogue, life and sanity. Mrs. Dalloway simultaneously supports two opposing ideas: the world has meaning and the world has no meaning. Meaning is not inherent, but constructed by human beings. No single interpretation as the only legitimate one. Past events give meaning to the present, and the present also inflects and modifies one’s interpretation of the past. Characterization--Clarissa upper class wife; conventional, “perfect hostess”, pale after the illness; emotional mood swing; love of life, the moments, the hours; skeptic of the existence of God; parties as an offering; alienated from husband and daughter. In Peter’s eyes, snob, prude, superficial. In Lady Bruton’s eyes, too much charm, to use for men’s political life. In Kilman’s eyes, useless class. Peter and Sally